Amazon granted licenses for new cloud service

Amazon set to rival iTunes Match after obtaining licenses.

According to reports in the New York Times, Amazon have been granted the relevant licenses to make music available in a cloud like format similar to the services currently offered by Apple’s iTunes and Google Play.

Amazon Cloud Player consists of two versions, the free option allows storage of abound 250 songs on their servers or 250,000 via an annual $24.99 premium. These allowances however do not include songs bought direct from Amazon which are stored for free and songs uploaded to the service will be saved at 256kpbs quality. Add that to the fact that over 150 independent labels have now joined EMI, Universal, Warner and Sony in allowing the service to go ahead Amazon Cloud looks to be a much closer rival to iTunes than the Google equivalent which has been suffering from many licensing issues.